The 'Moab & Midian' Letter

[ChrisGeorge]

Chris,

I'm not sure of your point. I didn't mention the M&M letter in my essay, and I don't believe I've mentioned Hopkins on this thread (although I alluded to him). Have you found 'proof' for sure that Hopkins was talking about Bulling? He probably was, given that Bulling was apparently the favored suspect at Scotland Yard, and Hopkins mentions Macnaghten.

I'm not sure what you're going after here, but thanks for remembering that ancient essay of mine.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi Tom

In your post above you said, "Flash forward years later when Bulling goes nuts on alcohol and (allegedly) starts telling reporters on Fleet Street that HE was responsible for the Ripper letters."

This seems to be the man described in the Thurston Hopkins book that you thought previously, according to your article, could not be positively identified as Bulling but now you seem to be saying it was Bulling. Aren't you contradicting yourself there, Tom? That was the point of my post. I don't have any new information on the matter one way or the other.

All the best

Chris

[Tom_Wescott]

I think my choice of words speaks for itself, Chris, and does not suggest I've contradicted myself.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[caz]

Hi All,

The most interesting thing about this 5th October letter is that the author, signing himself JtR, writes, "The police now reckon my work a practical joke, well Jacky's a very practical [practical underlined three times] joker ha ha ha . . ."

I don't think anyone at the time considered the murders of four women a practical joke, so it is possible that the author was talking about his letters to Central News.

If so, why on October 5th would he think the police considered them a hoax when only the previous day his "Dear Boss" letter and "Saucy Jacky" postcard had been plastered all over London on Metropolitan Police posters in the vain hope of someone recognising the handwriting?

My memory's a bit rusty here, but I think the first official murmur of the JtR correspondence being a hoax came from Charles Warren on about 10th October.

So maybe the Moab and Midian author had inside knowledge.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

I’m sure you are right about the author referring to the letters as his ‘work’ rather than the murders. Looking at page 29 of Letters From Hell [Evans & Skinner], I see that the Star reported on October 1st that:

‘A practical joker…wrote to the Central News last week, intimating with labored flippancy that he was going to commence operations again in Whitechapel shortly…’

Other press reports also indicated that the letter and postcard were believed to have been written by a practical joker.

On page 38, if I’m not mistaken, we have the Daily Telegraph reporting on October 4th (the day before Moab & Midian was supposedly written) that the Central News regarded Dear Boss ‘in the light of a practical joke’ and that even Scotland Yard did not ‘profess to attach any great importance’ to the letter and postcard, but still thought it worth having facsimiles prepared for the press in case anyone might recognise the handwriting.

Though I am intrigued as to why the author went down the religious route with Jack the Ripper (the author's character, not the actual killer/Whitechapel Murderer). Until M&M, he was, like what's been said already, a street-smart bloke with a macabre sense of humour. Was there speculation after the Double Event that these murders may have been the work of a religious man that could've influenced the author to include the God stuff? I ain't got a slightest clue as to what a Moab or Midian is, but are those connected to anything Jewish? Perhaps the writer got 'inspired' by the GSG.

Hi M&P,

Again, according to Letters From Hell, [page 35] we are informed that the Moabites were ‘severely punished for their treatment of the Israelites’. Also, when the Israelites were encamped in the plains of Moab, ‘the Midianites were invited by the Moabites to procure a curse on the children of Israel’.

The possibility is that the author of Moab & Midian was pretending to be a Jewish ripper, who was playing God and punishing the Whitechapel unfortunates, in recognition of how the Moabites and Midianites were ‘completely subdued and brutally punished’ for their conduct towards the Israelites.

What I can’t quite work out yet is the date the GSG first appeared in the papers. On page 37 of LFH, we are told that the Star and the Pall Mall Gazette both reported the message on October 8th as: ‘The Jews shall not be blamed for nothing’ [sic].

No doubt the Moab & Midian author could have known what the message said at least three days earlier, when he was writing. But I’d like to be sure, because there would be an obvious resonance between Jews and blame, and the women of Moab and Midian needing to be killed on behalf of the Israelites.

Another thing I’m not quite sure about is when the text of the Moab & Midian letter would have first seen the light of day. The above two reports of October 8th refer to it, but say that it has been ‘deemed prudent’ to withhold the content, and the indications are that the police asked Central News not to release the details. Did an independent hoaxer dream up the idea to send Lusk a bit of ‘cold meat’ to show, during the October lull, without having read the October 5th reference to trying for a ‘treble event’ so ‘you can show the cold meat’?

I do find it intriguing to think of the author of Dear Boss, the postcard and possibly Moab & Midian starting out not having a clue when - or even if - the Whitechapel Murderer would oblige by striking again, after September 8th in Hanbury.

Equally intriguing is the thought of the killer setting out on the last Saturday night of the month, with no idea about the promises put in writing on his behalf just a few days earlier, and flopping into bed afterwards with two more murders attributed to him, the second thought to be the result of a mission failure in Dutfield’s Yard.

If I let my imagination wander just a little too far, I can hear the killer saying to himself: “Phew! That was a close one. I would have looked a right Charlie if I hadn’t managed to rip one up at all”, and the hoaxer saying to himself: “That’s my boy, I knew you’d show up and do the business”.

But I have to assume that Kate’s killer didn’t know anything about any letter, and the Dear Boss author didn’t know that the killer of Polly and Annie wasn’t sitting in a police cell or on a slow boat to China when ‘Jack’ was being created.

Funny how ‘Jack the Ripper’ was all in the timing.

Love,

Caz
X

[YankeeSergeant]

Moab and Midian

You think Dr. Parker wroter this (and perhaps the Dear Boss and Saucy Jacky letters) with reference to and/or on behalf of Cutbush? Good theory, especially the religious aspect, for a story. No offence.

Realistically, I'd say the 'Jack the Ripper' letter trilogy was probably written by the same person, but by a definite hoaxer. You can tell they're fake by the broken promises made in them; fair enough quite a large part of Eddowes' ear was sliced off (at least that's what it looks like in her mortuary photos), but I think it's a safe bet to assume that that was coincidental. Plus the ear wasn't mailed to the police (though I guess you could explain that away by the killer getting sidetracked by his 'work' on the body).

I don't know enough about Bulling to form an opinion as to whether or not I think he could've been the hoaxer, but one thing's almost for sure, or at least from my perspective, a somewhat educated man (or woman, who knows) wrote the Moab & Midian (and Dear Boss) letter(s). It's very literate apart from a few minor grammatical 'errors', but if whoever was writting these got interrupted when jotting the stuff down, it could explain why they tend to lack proper grammar about halfway through to the end of the letters.

Though I am intrigued as to why the author went down the religious route with Jack the Ripper (the author's character, not the actual killer/Whitechapel Murderer). Until M&M, he was, like what's been said already, a street-smart bloke with a macabre sense of humour. Was there speculation after the Double Event that these murders may have been the work of a religious man that could've influenced the author to include the God stuff? I ain't got a slightest clue as to what a Moab or Midian is, but are those connected to anything Jewish? Perhaps the writer got 'inspired' by the GSG.

Moab and Midian were lands mentioned in the Old testament. Specifically Moses dwealt in the the land of the Midians for some time before the Exodus. I would not classify it as a particularly Jewish reference as 1888 was a time of far more religious education than we see now. NOt certain about the Anglican church but most Protestant denominations focus more heavily on the Bible than the Catholics do and the story of Moses and the exodus is one that is covered in detail in Protestant Sunday SChools.

[YankeeSergeant]

Author/ Hoaxer

Do we have any good suspects for authoring the three letters?

[YankeeSergeant]

Whitehall victim

Quick question, what do we know if anything about the Whitehall victim mentioned in the Moab and Midian letter?